Self-Resetting Bistable Redox Molecular Machines for Fullerene Recognition

Org Lett. 2022 Aug 19;24(32):5879-5883. doi: 10.1021/acs.orglett.2c01856. Epub 2022 Jul 29.

Abstract

Addressing control over molecular machines resulting in variable output modulation by mimicking nature mechanisms is a current hot topic. The exploitation of reversibility in thiol/disulfide motifs in chemical systems flanked by nonplanar corannulene moieties capable to recognize fullerenes is presented herein. Two redox-based machines have been conceived for this purpose: an ON/OFF switch that activates its binding properties upon dimerization and a self-resetting (i.e., with an automated backward process) host that substantially modulates its affinity.